Greeny News

The Forestry Commission is looking "lumberjills war, they could have had Michael Palin (" I'm a lumberjack and I'm fine ... ") in ecstasy

Jack had his Jill to help the nursery rhyme, so that in the worst days of the Second World War, Yorkshire became lumberjacks.

of loggers "was the nickname for fans of the timber body of women, the forestry arm of the army of the most famous women. Trucks every morning deep in forests and plantations that Cropton Dalby, near Pickering, and Boltby and Kilburn, between Thirsk and Helmsley.

His work was hard and unforgiving: logging, measurement of logs, timber loading trucks and driving piles that have been huge to sawmills. And now, will be organized by the Forestry Commission to celebrate 70 years since the body was created in 1942.

But Lumberjill veterans, so that the Commission is to launch an appeal to locate many of them as possible. They want to find more people like Edna Holland, 87, of Beverley, who left home for the first time in 17 years, Doncaster and spent three years working in the North York Moors in a camp Boltby loggers.

His work was closely followed not only by staff of forestry, but by his father, who was a minor at Doncaster and has written for her when he met a lot of sawn wood bending and poorly mine - the fate of many of the logging. Edna remembers receiving the letter in the hut he shares with Nissan nine other girls and a fire fueled by logs that had been cut. Some of his memories, a wonderful window into a vanished world:

Our uniform consisted of shoes, boots, pants, overalls, shirts, two green jersey coat and beret. The pants did not stay that way for long as the cut off shorts. We were sent question of special underwear, we do not like, or cut it short outside the well.

men Forestry Commission we learned everything they knew. Those who go in the military and wanted to convey their knowledge on how to cut a tree, and to make sure I knew how to do it properly so that we can carry out their good work when they disappeared. Does not prejudice at all, still accepts us and treated us well. Some younger men who went to war, he worked in the forests of the age of 14 after school.

was very hard work, but we learned much. We started to learn to cut a tree. Then we were taught to measure mine timbers of different sizes. My God, we have muscles everywhere, but we feel really good.

Boltby We worked and traveled all forests in the North York Moors. We left at 7:30 in the back of a truck and want to be picked up at 4:30 or 17:00, the house in time for dinner at 18:30. A work like this all day that made you hungry. The choice for lunch was a cheese sandwich or meat in the evening we had dinner cooked, sometimes cooked meat into pieces, rare fish, mostly meat, but with lots of vegetables. For breakfast we had eggs and sausage, or something.

I was amazed at how the trees are cut on television today by a large machine that holds the trees cut on the bottom and spreads to the trunk peeling all branches of both then cut into lengths. I was amazed at how.

We went to weekend dances at Thirsk, where does ballroom dancing like the waltz and Quick Step, we have learned during the dances. The Royal Corps of Signals, based in Thirsk and a dance band.

If I had not worked in the woods, I probably would have had to work in munitions factories in Doncaster, but I would not do that. Otherwise, have joined the army. The wooden body was just great, I learned a lot. "

think because we were cutting a tree down mining timber and we are happy to see it through from beginning to end was a satisfaction in what we were doing. We knew how important it was for the war. I was very proud of our contribution.

One of their contemporary successors, Century 21 Lumberjill Sarah Bell, 20, of Kirkbymoorside and a supervisor of the work of the Forestry Commission, is lost in admiration:

These days machines are more labor, but in forestry work in 1940 was much more intense. The only way to cut a tree was to use a saw or ax - Chain saws had not been invented yet. The girls were made of a durable material and it is the time of their contribution was best known.

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